Control
by Mach2K
Summary: Link's trying to find himself; where the Triforce ends and he begins. But the way he goes about it is rather terrifying. First Person POV, Oneshot.


It's a common train of thought that our personalities are bound to the Triforce we carry. I mean, I can see why people think that; Ganon's ever-longing lust for power and Zelda's infinite intelligence, and my complete willingness to throw myself into dangerous situations for, oftentimes, total strangers. Stuff like this bugs me. Since I've been carrying it around since birth, I've lost track of what is really Me and what is the Triforce. Where do I as a man begin? I look at Zelda and wonder what she would be like without her own piece.

I've tried to break out of it, actually. It's kinda weird. I think of something that truly scares me, and I focus on it, on feeling that fear, the jump of my heart and the heady rush of adrenaline. But each time, it's like my mind is being fed someone's instructions, that I can defeat my fear, that I can conquer whatever it is that stands in my way. I'm scared of plenty, but I always manage to fight it off.

They keep Redeads in the far end of the dungeon under the castle. Only two, and both of them are positioned with their backs to the cell doors, although sometimes they've moved, looking to one side or the other. The only creature that I've found what can actually stab to the very core of me with their penetrating glare. And I'm the only one who can fight their gaze off (who do you think got the cursed things down there in the first place?). Once a week, I go down into the dungeons and walk down the long line of cells. The first few times I took a dagger with me, but if I've got nothing, almost no way to defend myself, I feel the heady rush of fight-or-flight even more keenly.

So I walk down that path of doors, just wide enough so that no one can grab me from either side. Most are empty; Zelda's knack for diplomacy has granted us very few enemies to capture. One has a pile of bones; a skeletal warrior. We have all his bones, but one is kept in a locked cabinet in the cell opposite to keep him from reforming. Another one has a couple goblins. They rush the doors when they see me, grabbing the bars and rattling them and screeching in a guttural language. The first couple times it made me jump in surprise, to which they laughed. But now I just turn and look at them, and they step off.

I watch the very corners of the cells once I get past the halfway point. The cells are more or less empty until _theirs_, and there is a smell, a wet rank nasty smell of rotting leaves and musty dirt. It's _their_ smell, alright, the smell of their once-fragrant stuffing going to shit. Redeads are little more than reanimated corpses, and I suppose as living creatures, there is nothing scarier than the unknown, than death. And to see a couple of back-to-lifers ripped from ecstacy or hell to inflict their misery upon us, it's scary to most.

There; the smell is very strong now. My eyes adjust to the darkness in the bowels of the castle, and I can see their outlines, a little lighter than the walls they stare at day in and day out. I stare at their backs. These things just don't _move_ until they see you. It ain't right. I step forward, and the sudden sound of scraping, my boots on dirt, makes my skin crawl and bristle for a moment.

_It's alright, boy, it's just you. These creatures don't move until they find prey, you know that. And they can't see you._

I stand there for an hour, my hands tight in fists, one a little looser than the other.

When I asked to borrow the key, Zelda studied me with worry for a few long minutes. I don't know what she was worried about, because we both know that I could handle almost anything by myself.

"What do you need it for?" she asked in a quiet voice. It's these little talks we sometimes have where I try to search for the princess outside of the Triforce, but she's very secretive, and it's hard to do.

I'm bad at lying. I stared at her and licked my lips like I do when I'm nervous and look away, as if the answer will be written on a wall for me. "Oh," I start, "I was down there last week an' thought I saw a hole where rats could come in what needed plugging."

Zelda shook her head. "You know that as they are enemies of Hyrule, we should care little for their comfort."

"I'm not gonna repair it, Your Majesty, I just want to see how bad it is, in case it should cause uh… structural damage to the castle herself. Surely that's just as much of an enemy to Hyrule as anything else." I watch her carefully, and she smiles just a bit. She carefully removes the key from her coin purse and holds it out to my hand. It's a huge ornate heavy iron thing, and it's the key to all the cell doors. Bit of a stupid design plan, if you ask me, but no one hardly ever goes down there, and there's only one exit and entrance, with four of the burliest guards you'd ever seen standing at constant attention.

We'd had this talk a couple hours ago at this point. The key is cold in my palm, even now, as if it senses what I'm thinking of doing.

I listen for that little voice what's always been in my head, telling me what to do and how to do it. It directed me to sewing up wounds, to taking jumps that looked a little too far, and swimming just a little too deep.

It tells me now to use the key.

I unlock the cell door and push it to the side. It creaks and squeals on its rusting track, and the noise makes my ears ring. The plan is to step in and stand between the two Redeads, facing the same direction as them, to see how far in I have to go before they notice me. But there's a scrabbling and a squeaking sound over the thunder of my heart, and I see a mouse, trembling and sniffing along the floor, scampering along and stopping to preen its whiskers.

Stopping at the foot of a Redead.

It moans in a deep, lonely sound in the bottom of its gut. The mouse freezes where it is. The Redead turns its body to the side, slowly, hovering over its target. I feel pity for the poor creature, as it knows what its fate is about to be, and it merely needs to wait for it.

The ghoulish undead strikes fast, like lightning, snatching the mouse up in one papery, clawed hand and sinking its teeth into the mouse's fur with a sharp crunch and a squeal of pain. It eats quickly, blood dripping from its maw on the ground. But the mouse is gone now. I stare, frozen. The hideous thing of life that should not be slowly turns its head and looks at me.

There! I feel the kick of my heart, the panic inside of me, the rush as my desire to turn and run, locking the cell door, rises like a wave.

_Look into its eyes._

I do. I raise my own slowly, connecting with the two wells where the blackened eye sockets wait patiently for me to connect. Deep in the very back of those holes is a gentle blue glow, like fire. I shudder and wince, tears in my eyes. I watch its gaping maw fall open as it screams, a shriek to rival the rusty cell door. My muscles lock up for an agonizing second, and it slowly raises its arms to reach for me.

_KILL IT._

I am forced to obey, and with both hands, I reach up (incredibly fast, to my eyes) and grab its face. For one more second I am focused on its eyes, and I can see the hell it suffered in death, and how its existence, trapped in the halfway point of living and dead, is a heaven compared to what it saw. I tense my jaw and twist its head violently to the side, snapping its neck and killing it. The creature falls to the ground with a groan of horror, and I back away, leaving the cell and locking it up tight.

I step back; the other Redead still motionless, staring at the wall. I watch it suspiciously for a minute before turning back around, putting my back to it and walking out of the cell, closing it tight and locking it again. I take my time, making my way down the hall. The goblins stare at me with wide eyes, huddled in the corners; the sickly smell of shit floating from their cell. I brush on by, my jaw hardened, the key cold in my grasp.

When I pop out of the dungeon and into the brightly lit hall what leads to it, Zelda is standing there, waiting patiently for the key. I return it to her and she tucks it back into the little purse that hangs on her hip, then orders that I go to my rooms and rest.

"The dungeons are no place for a man of court unless he has been found to commit treason," she scolds outloud, but when I look in her face, I see her fear and worry. On some level, she understands what I'm doing.

I haven't really answered my own question, of where the Triforce stops and I begin. I don't know how I was expecting risking death to answer that. Maybe because now I can figure out what my own reactions are, compared to what it tells me to do. Maybe that's how I can get to know myself.


End file.
